Even going across the street for a bit led to a few interactions that showed how frayed my nerves are right now. It took me no fewer than five interactions to get the last one sort-of right, and I still feel very much unable to "people" well right now.
One thing I hate doing is bringing negative energy to a genuine request from someone on the street. I was hit by such a request 2 blocks from home, by someone who needed just a wee bit more for a vital medication. We went to the pharmacist but
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my nerves were frayed and I fell back into a way of venting I used to do all the time in Canada, when I was *so* miserable, *so* stuck in my life, & saw no way to fix any of my problems, but also couldn't help being in pseudo-public spaces (for work) where everyone around me "needed" me to fill in a perceived gap in their life. That's the kind of suffocation I've been feeling lately, and to have that old venting behaviour come out around someone *actually* in need filled me with great shame.
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@MLClark “If I am not for myself, who is for me? When I am for myself, what am I? If not now, when? (Pirkei Avot 1:14)”
Your struggle is not new, and not only you. Consider: On an airplane adults are instructed to take care of themselves first with air masks then take care of the vulnerable.
--because those can happen if I'm not spatially aware 100% of the time, or moving through a throng.
And this is my 'hood, so a balance of courtesy is necessary, and I can usually manage it. But right now my life is fucked, so all the people who keep imposing expectations on me - mostly based on my perceived singleness and/or exotic status - are wearing me out.
I feel acutely like I'll never belong anywhere, always being seen as a tool by everyone, not a person. #ImmigrantIssues
@MLClark and your always being the outsider is perhaps the empathy you emit like a ______________ ____________ to your __________ ___________. (You have think this through)
@MLClark well, in that case, you’re just going to have to put into a story to work it out then thank me in your Nebula Award speech.
Thank you for nudging me to articulate the fullness of the stressor, Canis.
Sneaky, clever move, you smart cookie you.
Sometimes naming the pent-up frustration is an excellent salve. 💙
@CanisPundit
Canis, I run into over a dozen people in my 'hood just walking 2 blocks to the park. I mentioned him because I brought him up the other day, when the encounter triggered stress binging when I got home. I'd never spoken to him before, but I'm "known" and sought out.
So it's a long gamut of different interactions throughout the day: the taxi drivers, the beggars, the people waiting for their rides.
The toughest ones are the fellows who catch my hand in handshakes that don't end--